Alexander Rosenberg
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Alexander Rosenberg (who generally publishes as "Alex") is an American philosopher and novelist. He is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
, well known for contributions to
philosophy of biology The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have lon ...
and
philosophy of economics Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly ide ...
. Rosenberg describes himself as a "naturalist".


Education and career

Rosenberg graduated from
Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...
in 1963 (along with
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (; born November 24, 1946) is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Biography Bueno de Mesquita graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1 ...
and
Richard Axel Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won hi ...
) and from the
City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
in 1967. He received his Ph.D. from the
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
in 1971. He has taught philosophy at
Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the fou ...
,
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
,
University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
,
University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...
and, since 2000, at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. He has been a visiting professor at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
, the
University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...
,
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, the
Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
and
Bristol University , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...
. He was a
Guggenheim fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in 1981, an
American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
fellow in 1983, won the
Lakatos Award The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previo ...
in 1993 and was the National
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
Romanell Lecturer in 2006. Rosenberg is an
atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
, and a metaphysical naturalist.


Philosophical work

Rosenberg's early work focused on the
philosophy of social science The philosophy of social science is the study of the logic, methods, and foundations of social sciences (psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, etc...). Philosophers of social science are concerned with the differences and similarities be ...
and especially the
philosophy of economics Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly ide ...
. His doctoral dissertation, published as ''Microeconomic Laws'' in 1976, was the first treatment of the nature of economics by a contemporary philosopher of science. Over the period of the next decade he became increasingly skeptical about
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
as an empirical theory. He later shifted to work on issues in the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
that are raised by biology. He became especially interested in the relationship between molecular biology and other parts of biology. Rosenberg introduced the concept of
supervenience In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
to the treatment of intertheoretical relations in biology, soon after Donald Davidson began to exploit Richard Hare's notion in the philosophy of psychology. Rosenberg is among the few biologists and fewer philosophers of science who reject the consensus view that combines
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substanc ...
with
antireductionism Antireductionism is the position in science and metaphysics that stands in contrast to reductionism (anti-holism) by advocating that not all properties of a system can be explained in terms of its constituent parts and their interactions. General ...
(see his 2010 on-line debate with
John Dupré John A. Dupré (born 3 July 1952) is a British philosopher of science. He is the director of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter. Dupré's chief work area lies in philosophy ...
at Philosophy TV). Rosenberg also coauthored an influential book on
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
with
Tom Beauchamp Tom Lamar Beauchamp (born 1939) is an American philosopher specializing in the work of David Hume, moral philosophy, bioethics, and animal ethics. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he was Senior Research Schola ...
, ''Hume and the Problem of Causation'', arguing that Hume was not a skeptic about induction but an opponent of rationalist theories of inductive inference.


''The Atheist's Guide to Reality''

Alex Rosenberg asserts the radical opinion that there is no enduring self on atheism. The existence of the self, he says, is "an illusion." In 2011 Rosenberg published a defense of what he called "
Scientism Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
"—the claim that "the persistent questions" people ask about the nature of reality, the purpose of things, the foundations of value and morality, the way the mind works, the basis of personal identity, and the course of human history, could all be answered by the resources of science. This book was attacked on the front cover of
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
by
Leon Wieseltier Leon Wieseltier (; born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of ''The New Republic''. He was a contributing editor and critic at ''The Atlantic'' until October 27, 2017, when the ...
as "The worst book of the year". Leon Wiseltier's claim, in turn, was critiqued as exaggeration by
Philip Kitcher Philip Stuart Kitcher (born 20 February 1947) is a British philosopher who is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. He specialises in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of mathema ...
in
The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
. On February 1, 2013, Rosenberg debated
Christian apologist Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in th ...
William Lane Craig William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American analytic philosopher, Christian apologist, author and Wesleyan theologian who upholds the view of Molinism and neo-Apollinarianism. He is Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist Univ ...
on the question 'Is Faith in God Reasonable?' during which some of the arguments of the book were discussed. Rosenberg has contributed articles to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' Op/Ed series The Stone, on naturalism, science and the humanities, and meta-ethics, and the mind's powers to understand itself by introspection that arise from the views he advanced in ''The Atheist's Guide to Reality.''


''How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of our Addiction to Stories''

In 2018 Rosenberg published ''How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of our Addiction to Stories''. This work develops the
eliminative materialism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coheren ...
of ''The Atheist’s Guide to Reality'', applying it to the role ‘the theory of mind’ plays in history and other forms of story telling. Rosenberg argues that the work of
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winners,
Eric Kandel Eric Richard Kandel (; born Erich Richard Kandel, November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surge ...
, John O'Keefe and
May-Britt Moser May-Britt Moser (born 4 January 1963) is a Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist, who is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She and her then-husband, Edvard Moser, share ...
along with
Edvard Moser Edvard Ingjald Moser (; born 27 April 1962) is a Norwegian professor of psychology and neuroscience at thKavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. In 2005, he and May-Brit ...
reveals that the ‘‘theory of mind‘‘ employed in every day life and narrative history has no basis in the organization of the brain. Evidence from evolutionary anthropology, child psychology, medical diagnosis and neural imaging reveals it is an innate or almost innate tool that arose in
Hominini The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...
evolution to foster collaboration among small numbers of individuals in immediate contact over the near future, but whose predictive weakness beyond this domain reveals its explanatory emptiness.


Critical discussions of Rosenberg’s work

In ''How History Gets Things Wrong'' Rosenberg claims people never really think about anything. Therefore, it is simply an illusion that people possess intentional states. He admits that therefore the (apparently derived) intentionality of inscriptions and speech cannot be derived from the (original) intentionality of thought. Rosenberg has not provided an account of the intentionality of speech and writing, and may in fact deny that they bear any either. In ''The Atheist's Guide to Reality'' he states that its sentences are tools for moving information into the reader's brain, triggering new neural firings. However, critics note that doing so cannot be Rosenberg's purpose in writing the book because on his position no one really has any purposes. While attracting some interest for its arguments about the philosophy of mind, Rosenberg's critique of narrative history in ''How History Gets Things Wrong'' has attracted criticism in academic reviews. Reviewers including Alexandre Leskanich in ''
The English Historical Review ''The English Historical Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1886 and published by Oxford University Press (formerly Longman). It publishes articles on all aspects of history – British, European, and wo ...
'', Jacob Ivey in ''
Philosophia ''Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering philosophy from different traditions that was established in 1971. The journal publishes five issues per year, and it is published by Springer Nat ...
'', and Michael Douma in ''
Journal of Value Inquiry The ''Journal of Value Inquiry'' is a peer-reviewed philosophical journal focused on value studies. It was founded in 1967 by James Wilbur. The journal publishes essays, letters, book reviews, interviews, dialogues, reports, and news. According ...
'' faulted the book for failing to engage with literature in the
philosophy of history Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by French philosopher Voltaire. In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between ''speculative'' philosophy of history and ''crit ...
and
narratology Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. It is an anglicisation of French ''narratologie'', coined by Tzvetan Todorov (''Grammaire du Décaméron'', 1969). Its theoretical li ...
and for oversimplified treatment of historical examples. Ivey also argued that Rosenberg's call for a Darwinian approach to historical explanation failed to acknowledge the limitations of past attempts to apply this approach and the complicated relationship in practice between Darwinian and humanistic methods in history. Rosenberg's treatment of fitness as a supervenient property, which is an undefined concept in the theory of natural selection, is criticized by Brandon and Beatty. His original development of how the
supervenience In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
of Mendelian concepts blocks traditional derivational reduction was examined critically by
C. Kenneth Waters C. Kenneth Waters holds the Canada Research Chair in Logic and the Philosophy of Science and is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary, where he specializes in philosophy of biology. Education and career Waters received his undergr ...
. His later account of reduction in developmental biology was criticized by
Günter Wagner Gunter or Günter may refer to: * Gunter rig, a type of rig used in sailing, especially in small boats * Gunter Annex, Alabama, a United States Air Force installation * Gunter, Texas, city in the United States People Surname * Chris Gunter ...
.
Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general phil ...
's "Multiple realization arguments against reductionism" reflects a shift towards Rosenberg's critique of anti-reductionist arguments of Putnam's and
Fodor The surname Fodor may refer to the following notable people: * Benjamin Fodor alias Phoenix Jones (born 1988), American real-life superhero * Carel Anton Fodor (1768–1846), Dutch conductor and composer * Carl Fodor (born 1963), American football ...
's. Sober has also challenged Rosenberg's view that the principle of natural selection is the only biological law. The explanatory role of the principle of natural selection and the nature of evolutionary probabilities defended by Rosenberg were subject to counter arguments by Brandon and later by Denis Walsh. Rosenberg's account of the nature of
genetic drift Genetic drift, also known as allelic drift or the Wright effect, is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance. Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and there ...
and the role of probability in the theory of natural selection draws on significant parallels between the principle of natural selection and the second law of thermodynamics. In the philosophy of social science, Rosenberg's more skeptical views about
microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
were challenged first by Wade Hands, and later by Daniel Hausman in several books and articles. The
financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
resulted in renewed attention to Rosenberg's skeptical views about
microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
. Biologist
Richard Lewontin Richard Charles Lewontin (March 29, 1929 – July 4, 2021) was an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, h ...
and historian Joseph Fracchia express skepticism about Rosenberg's claim that functional explanations in social science require Darwinian underlying mechanisms.


Literary work


''The Girl From Krakow''

Rosenberg's 2015 novel, ''The Girl From Krakow'', Lake Union Publishing, is a narrative about a young woman named Rita Feuerstahl from 1935 to 1947, mainly focusing on her struggles to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland and later in Germany, under a false identity. A secondary plot involves her lover's experiences in France and Spain during its Civil War in the 1930s and then in Moscow during the war. Rosenberg has acknowledged that the novel is based on the wartime experiences of people he knew. He has also admitted the incongruity of writing a narrative, given his attack on the form in ''The Atheist’s Guide to Reality''. He has said that ''The Girl from Krakow'' began as an attempt to put some of the difficult arguments of ''The Atheist’s Guide to Reality'' into a form easier to grasp". ''The Girl From Krakow'' has been translated into Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Hebrew and Croatian.


''Autumn in Oxford''

In 2016 Rosenberg's second novel, ''Autumn in Oxford'', appeared, also published by Lake Union Publishing. An afterword identifies the large number of real persons—academics, civil rights advocates, military officers, politicians and intelligence agents from the 1940s and '50s who figure in the narrative.


''The Intrigues of Jennie Lee''

in 2020 Rosenberg's third novel was published by Top Hat Books. An afterword identities the large number of public figures from Great Britain in the '30s who figure in the novel, including Jennie Lee,
Aneurin Bevan Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Health ...
,
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of Ki ...
--the subsequent centenarian Queen Mother,
Lady Astor Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor's first husband was America ...
,
Ellen Wilkinson Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...
,
Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...
and
Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
.


''In the Shadows of Enigma''

Rosenberg's fourth historical novel, a sequel to “The Girl from Krakow”, was published in 2021, also by Top Hat Books. This novel offers an explanation of why the Western Allies—the US, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia—kept the breaking of the German
Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...
code secret for 30 years after the end of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Four characters from his earlier novel figure in the sequel, Rita Feuerstahl, her partner Gil Romero, her son Stefan and a former
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
detective still working for the
German Federal Republic BRD (german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It ...
, Otto Schulke.


Role in Duke Lacrosse controversy

During the
2006 Duke University lacrosse case The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case in Durham, North Carolina, United States in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape. The three students were David Evans, Collin ...
, Rosenberg was one of the so-called
Group of 88 The Group of 88 is the term for those professors at Duke University in North Carolina who in April 2006 were signatories to a controversial advertisement in ''The Chronicle'', the university's student newspaper. The advertisement addressed the Duke ...
professors who, shortly after members of the university's lacrosse team were accused of rape, signed a controversial letter attacking the players and thanking protesters for "making a collective noise" on "what happened to this young woman."The Johnsville News: Duke Case: The 'listening' statement
/ref> The following year,
North Carolina Attorney General The Attorney General of North Carolina is a statewide elected office in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The attorney general is a constitutional officer responsible for representing state agencies in legal matters, supplying other state offici ...
Roy Cooper Roy Asberry Cooper III (born June 13, 1957) is an American attorney and politician, serving as the 75th governor of North Carolina since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th attorney general of North Carolina from 20 ...
, a Democrat, dropped all charges and declared the accused players innocent, stating that the players were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse."


Bibliography

* ''Microeconomic Laws: A Philosophical Analysis'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976) * ''Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980; Basil Blackwell, 1981) * ''Hume and the Problem of Causation'' (Oxford University Press, 1981) (with T.L. Beauchamp) * ''The Structure of Biological Science'' (Cambridge University Press, 1985) * ''Philosophy of Social Science'' (Clarendon Press, Oxford and Westview Press, 1988, fifth Edition, 2015), translation in Greek * ''Economics: Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns?'' (University of Chicago Press, 1992) * ''Instrumental Biology, or the Disunity of Science'' (University of Chicago Press, 1994) * ''Darwinism in Philosophy, Social Science and Policy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2000) * ''Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Approach'' (Routledge, 2000, third edition 2011), translations in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Turkish. * ''Darwinian Reductionism or How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology'' (University of Chicago Press, 2006) * ''The Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction'' (Routledge, 2007) (with Daniel McShea) * ''Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology'' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) (with
Robert Arp Robert Arp (born March 20, 1970) is an American philosopher known for his work in ethics, modern philosophy, ontology, philosophy of biology, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, religious studies, and philosophy and popular culture. He ...
) * ''The Atheist's Guide to Reality'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011) * ''The Girl From Krakow'' (Lake Union, 2015), translations in Polish, Italian, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Croatian * ''Autumn in Oxford'' (Lake Union, 2016) * ''The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Social Science'' (Routledge, 2017) (with Lee McIntyre) * ''How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories'' (MIT Press, 2018) * ''The Intrigues of Jennie Lee'' (Top Hat Books, 2020) * ''Reduction and Mechanism'' (Cambridge University Press, 2020) * ''In the Shadow of Enigma'' (Top Hat Books, 2021)


See also

*
American philosophy American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
*
List of American philosophers This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States. {, border="0" style="margin:auto;" class="toccolours" , - ! {{MediaWiki:Toc , - , style="text-ali ...
* List of City College of New York people *
List of Stuyvesant High School people This article lists notable people associated with Stuyvesant High School in New York City, New York, organized into rough professional areas and listed in order by their graduating class. Significant awards The lists below include alumni who hav ...
*
Antireductionism Antireductionism is the position in science and metaphysics that stands in contrast to reductionism (anti-holism) by advocating that not all properties of a system can be explained in terms of its constituent parts and their interactions. General ...
*
Philosophy and economics Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly ide ...
*
Philosophy of Biology The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have lon ...
*
Reductionism Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical pos ...
*
Lakatos Award The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previo ...
*
Guggenheim Fellows Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative abi ...


References


External links


Alex Rosenberg’s home page

Alex Rosenberg and David Levine on Economics at Bloggingheads

John Dupré and Alex Rosenberg on Reductionism at Philosophy TV

Owen Flanagan and Alex Rosenberg on Naturalism at Philosophy TV

"The Disenchanted Naturalist's Guide to Reality."
* *
Alex Rosenberg on Atheist's Guide to Reality at Minnesota Atheists

Richard Marshall reviews "Atheist's Guide to Reality"
in 3:AM Magazine
Alex Rosenberg on Atheist's Guide to Reality at American Free Thought

Alex Rosenberg, Samir Okasha, Julian Baggini on "Atheist's Guide to Reality" at Microphilosophy

Talking_Philosophy_interview_with_Alex_Rosenberg_on_"Atheist's_Guide_to_Reality"_[now_hosted_on_Rosenberg's_homepage
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="ow hosted on Rosenberg's homepage">Talking Philosophy interview with Alex Rosenberg on "Atheist's Guide to Reality" [now hosted on Rosenberg's homepage
/nowiki>">ow hosted on Rosenberg's homepage">Talking Philosophy interview with Alex Rosenberg on "Atheist's Guide to Reality" [now hosted on Rosenberg's homepage
/nowiki>
Alex Rosenberg, "Bodies-in-Motion-An Exchange."

Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain, "What Is Economics Good For?"

Alex Rosenberg, "Can moral disputes be resolved?"

Alex Rosenberg, an extended film interview with transcripts for the 'Why Are We Here?' documentary series


* [https://www.salon.com/writer/alex-rosenberg/ Alex Rosenberg, "Why most narrative history is wrong"]
Alex Rosenberg, "Can we learn from history?"

Alex Rosenberg, "Humans are hardwired to tell history in stories"


{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenberg, Alexander Philosophers from North Carolina American atheists Atheist philosophers City College of New York alumni Duke University faculty Syracuse University faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni Stuyvesant High School alumni Living people Naturalism (philosophy) Philosophers of biology 1946 births Philosophers of social science Writers about religion and science 20th-century atheists 21st-century atheists Lakatos Award winners